Rosetta Stone V3 French Level 1-2-3 Personal Edition (Mac/PC) | 
 enlarge | From: Rosetta Stone
Category: Software
List Price: £339.00
Buy New: £308.32
You Save: £30.68 (9%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 616
Platforms: Mac Os X, Windows Xp
Media: CD-ROM
Operating System: Mac OS X
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.8 x 8.1 x 2.4
ISBN: 1603910603
EAN: 9781603910606
ASIN: 1603910603
Release Date: October 9, 2007
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 I advise you strongly not to buy this overpriced rubbish November 19, 2008
Being a native english speaker who has lived in France now for 5 years I feel I can speak with a bit of experience on which learning aids work and which don't. I arrived in France with nothing other than the very basics (100 words maybe and a few phrases badly pronounced). Over the years I have bought several of the various aids on sale. I can confirm that the Rosetta Stone series are the most overpriced, badly made products on sale. Fortunately I tried this without buying as a friend had bought it. This course completely fails to even consider the most trusted and effective methods that all teachers have used for many years now. It is true than in the early days of learning a language a student is happy to learn a few words and phrases by repetition and memory but after the brief phase passes the ground rules and teaching must follow in a steady but evolving method that explains the rules of grammer, the pronounciation and sets out course work that teaches by thought and learning, through mistakes and effort. This sad, American based 3rd rate product would be overpriced at 10 and is the sort of thing normally found in bargain bin software outlets. There are so many great teaching aids out there to choose from and almost all are a fraction of the price of this product. In all the products I have tried I can recommend without hesitation the beginner to advanced software course that is sold by frenchclasses dot com (search on the internet). Then with the money saved buy a french Bescherelle verb conjugation book, a good dictionary (not the pocket ones, they are useless) and then try watching a few DVDs in native french. If you start to improve and feel keen then the next step is French evening classes, holidays in France and if funds allow a language course in France. In the end it is all practise and having the courage to converse with French speakers. The Rosetta Stone would be the worst money you could ever spend and perhaps may actually ruin your chances of ever speaking French.
 Quick, simple, effective... but a bit expensive. August 14, 2008
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
Ok, so first of all there are a lot of bad reviews about this product, which i was weary of before buying. i read one which said that it teaches you like a child and adults need to read books to learn a language. Whilst i agree that the techniques are very simple, i completely disagree that a book would serve you better.
Rosetta Stone concentrates on teaching you a language (pronunciation and spelling included), not specific phrases you may need for a holiday. The whole process is quite repetitive and sometimes slow (it can feel like you're going over the same thing again and again, then you realise how easily you've learnt it), but the point is, it's not quick learning an entire language. It features images, speech recognition and typing tests so you can learn (as a child would) to speak fluently. Some may find it tedious, but it really drums it into you. Picking up the new words and phrases is fast and actually interesting. It managed to keep my attention longer than my French phrase book.
I really liked that you can identify the picture that goes with the phrase, then it turns it round so you choose the phrase that goes with the image. I've used some other software that only did the former, and found it was too easy to 'cheat'. By reversing it, it really gets you thinking.
Another thing I liked is that there is no English translation. Instead you work it out from the picture. Like I said, it's easy to pick up and I enjoyed not feeling like I was reading a vocab book.
After the first day I noticed a VAST improvement. I took French for 5 years in school, yet didn't manage to pick a lot up in the long term. After using it for about half an hour a day, for 2 weeks, I can now string sentences together and my vocabulary is better than ever.
It's quite expensive, but if you want to learn a new language, and are willing to put in the time, then this is for you.
Best course available July 12, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I am totally happy with my Rosetta Stone courses. First I bought the Italian course, and in three months I was able to stay in Rome for three days without having to revert to English. Then I got the French course, and I have enjoyed working my way through it. The best thing about it is that the progress is slow and you really learn something. Compared to Hugo's courses (which are good as add-ons), you learn to speak the language. I recommend that you repeat each phrase three times, even if you are not required by the section of the course you're at to speak it out loud.
Highly recommended, but expensive. My Spanish course awaits me.
V Good July 7, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I am relatively new to learning languages, and remember how tedious it was learning in secondary school with the tens of books, dictionarys audio tapes and Cd's it just didn't stick.
All I can say is this method works for me association with images, spoken word and speech recognition, never thought it was possible to learn languages enjoyably and have conversations in a relatively short time as well as make it stick.
Lumi.
Got me talking, despite my previous disasters. June 11, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I found Rosetta Stone's method of teaching very engaging and think I made progress quickly. This was a relief because I had struggled learning French for what seemed liked forever, despite absolutely loving the country!
What I liked about Rosetta Stone was (1) the fact that it does not use translation at all. I just got what the words and the speech meant from connecting them to the pictures of what was going on. (2) I really enjoyed the speech recognition. It's wierd for me to get that a computer can actually "understand" what you're saying and grade what you say against a native speaker. I liked the feature where you could slow down the speech of a native speaker and match your pronunciation against a visual representation of what they said.
So it worked for me. I wasn't going to become an advanced speaker, but I felt I was able to get by and more than that too. I guess to really be an advanced speaker you have to be in country, but even though I would love that, I cannot afford a 12 month holiday in France.
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